


The Calm Before the Storm

by bayoublackjack



Series: Stars & Stripes Forever [29]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Divergence - Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), F/M, Matchmaking, POV Martha Jones, Siblings, Sisters, Thor's Hammer - Freeform, Wedding Planning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 08:34:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7307845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bayoublackjack/pseuds/bayoublackjack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Martha's fear that their seemingly quiet existence is only a temporary reprieve spurs the need for a distraction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Calm Before the Storm

Martha opened her eyes and sighed heavily.  The bedroom was still dark and Steve lay next to her sleeping soundly.  He was an early riser and usually the first one out of bed.  It was a rare event for Martha to wake first, though in this case, she hadn’t really gotten any sleep in the first place.

By all accounts, she should have been happy.  All was quiet on the work front and now that the Avengers had located Loki’s scepter and captured Baron von Strucker, things seemed to be calming down for Steve as well.

Martha stared over at him.  Her eyes zeroed in on the faint bruises that had almost faded completely following his latest battle.  She ran a hand over his bare chest and Steve began to stir.

“What time is it?” he asked with a sleepy groan.

“Too early to get up.  The sun hasn’t even risen yet,” Martha replied while pressing her lips to his forehead.  “Go back to sleep.”

Steve wiped the sleep from his eyes.  “Why are you awake?”

Martha hesitated for half a moment before giving in and answering his question.  “I couldn’t sleep.”

Steve sat up in bed.  “What’s wrong?”

It was a good question.  Too bad for Martha, she didn’t have a good answer.  “That’s the problem,” she began as she pushed herself up into a sitting position.  “As far as I can tell, nothing _is_ wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“Have you ever had that feeling where everything is going well but you can’t allow yourself to enjoy it because you feel as though something or someone is going to snatch it all away from you?  Like this peaceful existence of ours is just the calm before the storm.”  Steve’s mouth formed a straight line and Martha cut him off before he could speak.  “Absolutely daft, isn’t it?”  She scoffed.  “The planet is safe, Hydra is all but defeated and our wedding is on the horizon.  So why in the hell am I so bloody afraid that the world is about to come crashing down around us?”

Martha sighed heavily and Steve pulled her into his arms.  “I think it’s natural to be a bit wary after all we’ve been through.”

“Perhaps, but constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop is no way to live.” 

“Maybe you just need a distraction.  We could go away for a bit.”

“We just went away two months ago for my birthday,” Martha reminded him as she slipped her arms around his waist.  “And this party tonight is distraction enough.”  The Tower was hosting yet another big bash later that evening.  This one was in celebration of the Avengers' recent victories over Hydra.

“We went away for the weekend,” Steve pointed out.

“A very memorable one at that,” she added with a wide grin.  Steve had booked them a room at a quaint little bed and breakfast in the Catskills.  They saw very little outside of it.

“Definitely,” he agreed with a quick kiss to her lips.  “But I was thinking more along the lines of an extended honeymoon.”

Martha lifted a brow at his suggestion.  “Oh?”

“Yea.”  Steve nodded.  “I think we should move the wedding up.”

“That could be a bit difficult considering that we’ve yet to set a firm date.”

“So let’s set one.  The sooner the better.”

“Keen, aren’t you?”  Martha questioned with a laugh.

“To make you my wife?  Definitely,” he replied before giving her another kiss.  As he pulled back, he held her face between his palms.  “Too much of my life has been spent longing for the past or being uncertain about the present, but whenever I’m with you the only thing I care about is the future.  _Our_ future.”

Martha bit back a smile.  “Maybe you should be saving those pretty words for your vows,” she teased.

“Believe me.  There’s plenty more where that came from.”

“Well it’s too early to make any plans right now.  I doubt Tish is even up yet.”  If they were going to try to get married on short notice, Martha was definitely going to need her older sister’s expertise in party planning.

“So we’ll save it until after the party tonight,” Steve said.

“Alright,” Martha agreed with a nod.  She lay back against the bed.  “I guess we should go back to sleep.”

“You know me,” Steve responded as he leaned over her.  “Once I’m up, I’m up.”

Martha flashed a mischievous grin in his direction.  “How awake are you?” she challenged.

Steve shifted his position so that his body was covering hers.  “Let’s find out.”

By Martha’s account, Steve was well and truly awake and, by the time the sun rose, they had thoroughly exhausted themselves with an impromptu morning workout.  After a brief nap on her part and a quick shower for both of them, Martha rang Tish and invited her over to discuss the newest development in their wedding plans.

“Please tell me it’s not another pregnancy scare causing you to put a rush on the wedding,” Tish said with an exasperated sigh.  “FYI, birth control is a very real and very useful thing.”

“Too late.  I’m already pregnant,” Martha joked.  “It’s a boy.  We’re thinking of naming him Sam.  That is unless you’d rather save that name for _your_ firstborn.  Of course there’s always Bruce or James.  That is if you’re even capable of making a choice in the first place.”

“You’re such a…”  Tish glanced at Steve, who was in the kitchen pouring himself a cup of coffee. “Bitch,” she mouthed to her sister.

Martha leaned forward in her chair.  “I know he’s a super solider, but super hearing isn’t something he’s capable of,” she teased, taking great pleasure out of being able to take the piss out of Tish for once.

“Good because he looks like he’s gonna have a conniption every time I swear.”  Tish turned her eyes back to Martha.  “You’d think curse words were a recent invention or something.”

Martha laughed.  “He’s from Brooklyn and he was in the army.  Trust me when I say that he’s no stranger to hearing swear words.”  She lifted her mug to her lips.  “In the heat of the moment, he’s even been known to pop one off.”

Tish scoffed and narrowed her eyes at Steve.  “Spangly little hypocrite.  So he can curse when he’s upset but I can’t?”

“Well…”  Martha smirked into her cup.  “He’s usually not upset at the time.”

“Stop right there!” Tish retorted while aiming a threatening finger at her.  “You know the rule.  You’re not allowed to give out juicy details of your sex life if I’m not allowed to fantasize about the man in question.”

“You do realize most women wouldn’t want to hear about their future brother-in-law that way?”

“And do you realize that most women don’t have regular contact with a prime cut of all-American beef aged to perfection,” Tish said while checking Steve out once more.

“Nor do they have regular contact with brilliant scientists, brave colonels or compassionate counselors,” Martha countered.

Tish faced Martha once more.  “And you say I don’t understand subtlety.”

“All I’m saying is that three very eligible men fancy you, you seem to like them as well, and all three of them will be there tonight.  So it might behoove you to stop stringing them along and make a decision.”

“First off, I haven’t been stringing anyone along.  I’ve made it perfectly clear to all of them that I’m not a woman who likes to be tied down.”  She paused.  “Well, at least proverbially speaking.”  Martha rolled her eyes.  “Besides…I’ll have you know that I _have_ made a decision about which one I fancy the most.”

Martha leaned forward again.  “Go on then.”

“Well I’m not bloody telling you before I’ve had a chance to talk to them,” Tish told her with a scoff.

“Fine but at least give me a hint,” Martha pleaded.

Tish exhaled sharply.  “Alright.”  She cast a furtive glance in Steve’s direction then leaned in close to her sister.  “The bloke I fancy the most…has an ‘A’ as the second letter of his name,” she confessed.

“Sam?” Martha asked with a gasp.  “Wait.”  She pursed lips.  “Sam.  Banner.  James.”  She scoffed.  “They all have a bloody ‘A’ in their names.”

“See?”  Tish smirked.  “I can be a bitch too.”

Tish didn’t give up any more information, but at least Martha had a distraction now.  Between thoughts of the wedding, the intrigue of her sister’s romantic entanglements and the party atmosphere, Martha didn’t have time to worry about much of anything.

By the time the party wound down, Martha was able to eliminate one potential suitor.  Tish had probably spent the least amount of time with Colonel Rhodes over the course of the evening.  After a brief but seemingly cordial exchange, Rhodey spent the rest of the evening regaling various ladies with War Machine stories while Tish divided her evening between Sam and Bruce when she wasn’t chatting up random partygoers.

“Did you talk to Sam before he left?” Martha asked Steve just before they gathered with the remaining stragglers, which consisted of the other Avengers, Rhodey, Maria, Helen and Tish.  “How did he seem?”

“He seemed fine,” Steve answered with a suspicious expression.  “Why?”

Martha gave a noncommittal shrug.  “I was just trying to get a read on the situation,” she said innocently.

Steve shook his head.  “You’re turning into Natasha.”

“No, if that were the case, I’d be a world class spy and I’d already have all the details.”

Steve laughed and gave her a kiss on the temple.  “Let it go.”

“You’re the one who told me to find a distraction,” she reminded him with a playful nudge.

“You’re right I did,” he admitted.

“Well do you have a better alternative?” Martha asked hopefully.

The corner of Steve’s mouth turned upward.  “There’s always our old standby,” he suggested.  “Or…”  He gestured to the others.  Clint was ranting about how Mjolnir was rigged and Thor welcomed him to the chance to try and lift it.  “We can watch our friends make fools of themselves.”

Clint’s attempt to lift Mjolnir was in vain and his failure soon spurred an all-out contest.  Tony was unsuccessful despite the added aid of his armored gauntlets and joint approach with Rhodey.  Bruce also failed and so did Tish.  Natasha politely declined the opportunity.  On Steve’s turn, the hammer seemed to budge ever so slightly but ultimately denied him as well.

“You’re up, Doc,” Clint told Martha once all the others who attempted had failed.

Martha laughed.  “Who me?”

“Come now,” Tish retorted.  “If there was ever going to be anyone worthy of anything among us, it would be you.”

“We all know you’re too good for Cap,” Tony teased.  “Pick up the hammer and prove it once and for all.”

Martha scoffed, but Steve gave a nudge of encouragement.  “Oh alright!” she relented as she rose to her feet.  She stared at the hammer with apprehension.  Long before she had ever known him to be an Asgardian, Martha had heard stories of the mighty Norse god Thor and his hammer Mjolnir.  To think that now she stood before said hammer seeking to prove her worthiness seemed laughable, but there was no real harm in giving it a go.

Martha wrapped her fingers around the handle and she suddenly felt as though she was reunited with a piece of herself that she had never known was missing.  In that moment, she knew that Mjolnir was hers for the taking.  All she had to do was just pick it up and claim it as her own.

For a brief moment, Martha felt out of touch with her own body, but once she retracted her hand, the world seemed to return to normal.  “That was weird,” she said while staring at her outstretched hand.  When no one replied, she looked up to see that everyone was staring at her with wide eyes.  “What?” she asked in confusion.

Tish pointed at Mjolnir.  “I think…I mean it…it looked like you…”

“That I what?”  Martha scoffed and turned her eyes towards the hammer.  “It hasn’t moved an inched.”  She glanced at Steve and he seemed just as lost as they others.

Clint broke the silence first.  “We all saw that, right?”  He looked around the group.  “I mean there’s no way we all imagined it.”

Maria shook her head.  “I don’t know what I just saw.”

“I mean it _did_ look like she did it, right?” Rhodey replied.  “That she lifted it?”

“Are you lot having me on?” Martha asked in disbelief.

Helen shrugged.  “We saw what we saw.”

“So then it’s true?” Tish questioned.  “She’s worthy?”

When no one else seemed to be of any help, Martha finally turned to Thor himself.  “Can you please tell them how ridiculous they sound?”

Thor regarded Martha with an unreadable expression before silently moving toward Mjolnir.  He reached for the handle, hesitating briefly before gripping the hammer and effortlessly picking it up.  Once it was in his hands, he visibly relaxed as though, for a moment, he actually feared that it was going to reject him.

Tony looked at Steve.  “I guess Asgard is as good a place as any for your honeymoon.  I mean we all knew Martha was a goddess but I guess it’s official now?”  He turned his attention to Thor.  “So is there like a timeshare option available for that thing now that you’re not the only one worthy of it.” 

Before anyone could say another word, there was an ear splittingly high-pitched noise.  “Worthy?” asked a mechanical voice.  “No.  How could you be worthy?”  All eyes turned towards the door were one of Tony’s half constructed Iron Legionnaires limped towards them.  “You're all killers.”

“Bloody hell,” Tish muttered softly.

Steve quickly stood up.  “Stark?”  One by one, the others rose to their feet as well.

“J.A.R.V.I.S.?” Tony called out to his AI.

“I'm sorry, I was asleep,” the legionnaire informed them.  “Or I was a-dream.”

“I need to reboot Legionnaire OS,” Tony said.  “We got a buggy suit.”

“There was this terrible noise,” it continued.  “And I was tangled in…in…strings.  I had to kill the other guy.  He was a good guy.”

“You killed someone?” Steve asked.  Martha’s eyes immediately went to Tish and she grabbed her sister by the hand, pulling her to her side.

“Wouldn't have been my first call,” it replied to Steve’s question.  “But, down in the real world, we're faced with ugly choices.”

“Who sent you?” Thor demanded.

“I see a suit of armor around the world,” a recording of Tony’s voice replied.

“Ultron,” Bruce said softly, glancing at Tony.

“In the flesh,” Ultron responded.  “Or, no, not yet.  Not this chrysalis.  But I'm ready.  I'm on mission.”

“What mission?” Natasha asked.

“Peace in our time,” Ultron declared.  Then all hell broke loose.


End file.
